


La pureté de ses formes

by surlelac



Category: Captain America
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Homophobia, Multi, mention of past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:55:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surlelac/pseuds/surlelac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In another world, the night that Bucky left Steve would have gone to the recruiting station and been picked for Erskine’s experiment. He would have become Captain America and would have rescued Bucky, only to lose him again later when he picked up the shield.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La pureté de ses formes

In another world, the night that Bucky left Steve would have gone to the recruiting station and been picked for Erskine’s experiment. He would have become Captain America and would have rescued Bucky, only to lose him again later when he picked up the shield. 

Instead, Steve had just missed him; one last stolen moment of standing next to Bucky was enough to tilt the odds against him. Erskine left, disappointed with another failed night of finding someone he thought would suit, and ended up finding another boy (brown haired and brown eyed, not quite the picture perfect image of American youth but close enough that the PR people were happy to label him as Captain America and trot him out on the USO tours when Erskine died and the formula was lost). 

Steve wished, sometimes, that he had gotten that chance, especially when the (all too infrequent) letters from Bucky stopped coming. He might have been stuck on tour, but at least he would have been in Europe then and able to sneak off and find his best friend. (Something had to have happened to him, he never would have stopped writing otherwise and Steve _knew_ he wasn’t dead. Bucky wouldn’t dare die overseas.) 

When the news came out that Captain America had rescued the 107th and he was able to see Bucky alive (hurt, but alive – if he had died, Steve would have killed him himself and he hadn’t really been looking forward to that), Steve felt a sense of relief that he suspected was too strong for someone who had almost lost their best friend. Once the letters started up again, he put it out of his mind (there was no way he was like some of the fellas in his art class, the ones everyone knew were a little light but no one ever said anything about) and was just happy he could hear from him again. What little money he made that he could spare, he bought chocolate with and mailed it to Bucky along with some illustrations to keep him entertained, especially once he got sent to England. 

Granted, being on leave in a country like England couldn’t be all that boring, but Bucky seemed to like getting the illustrations from him. He commented when Steve forgot the one time; he’d had a really bad cold and wrote his letter well enough that it wasn’t obvious he was out of it from coughing all day but it hadn’t occurred to him until after he mailed it that he’d forgotten an illustration. It was too late to send another one and the cold had eaten up what little money he’d managed to put away so he couldn’t send another letter until next pay day. 

After a few weeks of being in England talking to shrinks and assuring Steve that he was _okay_ , stop your worrying, he got sent back to New York. Steve met him after he was discharged and took him home, their shoulders bumping as they walked. If anyone asked, they would have blamed it on the limp he still had, the wounds that were still healing, and not on the fact that he finally was with the one person he’d missed while overseas.

***

Bucky didn’t really talk about what happened to him before Captain America got him. Steve knew it was going to take a lot of work and Lord, did he know that Bucky had nightmares. They still shared a bed - Steve wasn’t making a lot of money and Bucky had his money he gets from being discharged honorably but that was going to run out soon and they need to save for that eventuality. Jobs weren’t the easiest thing to come by.

At least, that’s what they both kept telling themselves and each other. Insisting it has nothing to do with wanting to feel safe and held. Bucky had always held Steve when they slept and he’d missed the feel of having someone in his arms in Europe. There’d been guys in his unit who held each other (he’d heard them do other things, but he wasn’t gonna say anything. It took all kinds of shit to get them through battles and who was he to judge when he dreamed of being with Steve?). Steve just said it kept him warmer and, though he would never admit it, he liked that he could feel when Bucky started to have nightmares, since it meant he could wake him up and help him forget for a few minutes. 

They touched more then they used to. 

It was unconscious, for the most part. And what wasn’t unconscious was justified in that Bucky had been _tortured_. He needed the confirmation that he was alive and safe and Steve would continue to tell himself that until he was blue in the face. 

Bucky started to open up more as the months went on, quietly telling Steve some of the things that happened in Austria. He would never tell him all of it – it would only result in both of them hurting too much – but the little he did spill, helped. They talked about Captain America, too, and how the guy had started out scrawny and then got that serum to make him the way he is now. Steve was understandably upset by the knowledge that he’d found a way to go to war despite his health, but he didn’t know how the Captain was picked. Bucky didn’t want to know what he would do if he ever found it out.

***

The tipping point in their delicate balance of pretending they didn’t care more then they should came when some assholes saw Steve touch Bucky’s shoulder in a way they didn’t approve of (it didn’t matter that he was reminding Bucky he was in New York, not Austria, all that mattered was that they looked like goddamn queers) and they went after Steve when Bucky went inside to buy a pack of cigarettes. Steve was holding his own in his first fight in ages as best as he could against three jerks that each had more muscle in one arm then Steve had in his entire body.

Bucky was physically healed by now and managed to use some dirty tricks he learned in the war to get rid of them but the damage was done. What should have been a good night out ended up being another one where they headed home and Bucky cleaned Steve up. It took a while but Bucky finally got Steve to tell him what they said.

It took even longer for Steve to admit he wasn’t mad that they called him a queer; he’d finally admitted to himself he was one. He was mad they would dare call Bucky that – and he understood if Bucky didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. He hadn’t meant to hide it from him for this long but Bucky was so important to him and he didn’t want to give up being near him. 

Bucky left. Years later, he’ll be so angry at himself for doing that, for making Steve spend a night thinking he hated him and that he wouldn’t ever see him again, but at the time, he needed the space. He walked the city, thinking about the men in his unit and how they’d been so _happy_ , even in the middle of all that death. How some people they both knew growing up were just ‘good friends’ that were too busy to go chasing tail. 

He thought a lot about Steve and how he’d been the only thing he’d truly missed while in Europe. How the thought of Steve and how he stood up to people no matter what they did is what got him through the torture. 

Steve was still awake when he came home. 

Bucky sat and looked up at him, drinking in the sight of his (exhausted, shattered) face before he finally poured everything out. Everything he’d thought about the night before and how he couldn’t even begin to imagine not having Steve in his life. How he’d never slept half as well as when he was holding the smaller man and how, more importantly, he finally realized how much he loved Steve and if that made them queer and that made what they had disgusting, well fuck society. He’d served this country and Steve was better than any man he knew and if they didn’t like that they loved each other, they could suck it up and learn to live with it because there was no way he was giving Steve up now. Not after he’d had to fight so hard to get back to him.

***

It had taken them a while to become truly physical with each other (due, in part, to the fear that Steve would fall apart and die if Bucky worked him up too much – he’d gotten a bit more protective since that night). It had taken them even longer to get to the point where they weren’t afraid to walk out in public holding hands and, eventually, kissing. Not that they made out, just a simple peck on the lips or cheek as Steve went into the store or Bucky was dropped off at work.

The first time Bucky was able to come to the hospital with Steve and be there for him during a procedure was the biggest step for them. Neither of them really cared about the rest of it, just the knowledge that Bucky could finally afford to get Steve help and be there for him was what mattered to them.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Une Dernière Danse_ by Kyo


End file.
